The Intersection of Innovation and Contemporary Living

Noisy Browser Tabs and Finding Your Stuff

When a tab is streaming audio in Chrome 32 Beta, an indicator will appear next to the close tab X. The indicators will change depending on the source, so streaming audio will be denoted by a speaker icon, a red circle will indicate a Web cam, and Chromecast’s box icon will notify you when you’re broadcasting a tab to your television.

Yes, it is a welcome improvement but just the start of what should be a wide ranging overhaul of tabs in general.

1) When you are like me and have so many tabs open that you see nothing but favicons, finding stuff becomes a frustrating task. and then multiply this by the 6 browser windows I have open. FIX: Give me the ability to tag browser tabs so that they stand out in the crowd and for a bonus give me the ability to expand a tab to full size so that I can read it instead of interpreting a favicon.

2) Hangouts are great and one thing that I am finding very frustrating is that when a Hangout opens within an existing browser window instead of launching a new one. The problem becomes acute when you go to screenshare something and you first have to shift focus to find what it is you want to share. and then try to find your Hangout tab to regain focus. FIX: Pop the browser tab size (vertical and horizontal) for Hangouts to provide quick visual reference.

3) Finding browser tabs across multiple open windows is a PITA and often I find myself wanting a shortcut to simply identify a tab. FIX: Give me a dropdown menu like the App Menu to display every open browser tab across all windows.